Tree-Huggers, Conservatives Worry About Puberty

According to a new study, girls are hitting puberty earlier
and that's got National Review and TreeHugger worried. On Monday,
the conservative and environmentalist publications reacted to a
new study by researchers at the Breast Cancer and the Environment
Research Centers. The study found
that "between 2004 and 2006 twice as many Caucasian girls showed breast
maturity at age 7 as compared to 1997." The study attributed the change
to a combination of factors including childhood obesity and substances
in the environment.

So how did coverage from the two news
outlets differ? As you'll notice in the TreeHugger article, the author focuses
most closely on exposure to chemicals in the environment. Brian Merchant
writes:

Researchers
worry that if the change is being triggered by an environmental factor,
like exposure to a chemical, then there may be an additional cancer
risk therein.

So the researchers have set about testing a wide range
of household chemicals, along with the hormone levels of affected girls
to see if there's a correlation. And I think that the first author of
the study, Dr. Biro, has some sage words about the potential root of the
problem: "It's certainly throwing up a warning flag. I think we need to
think about the stuff we're exposing our bodies to and the bodies of
our kids. This is a wake-up call, and I think we need to pay attention
to it."

National Review, meanwhile, gives less notice to
"chemicals in food" and more attention to parenting, child psychology
and dietary concerns. Meg Meeker writes:

So why is this news such a big deal?
For one thing, early puberty is terribly hard on girls socially,
emotionally, and even physically. Research shows that girls who start
puberty early experience higher rates of troubled relationships. They
get bullied and sexually harassed. And when third-grade girls look like
sixth-grade girls, adults expect them to act older, which makes the
girls feel crazy...

So what do we do? No parent
wants his daughter menstruating in third grade. Since we believe that
early puberty is probably related to being overweight, let's take the
bull by the horns and get serious about helping our kids keep their
weight down.

Our kids are bludgeoned with food advertisements, and
we aren't going to stop this. But we can train our kids in the ways of
self discipline.